Let's play your game

TFeldt · Fri 07/02/2014 21:42:25

Salutations.

I have a small youtube channel where I (mostly) do "let's play" series of games I enjoy. My intent when I first started was to cover games that were either forgotten or overlooked. It's a formula I've stuck to, for the most part.

Since I don't want to step on any toes I always ask the developers for permission after having done a couple of parts. I've only just completed the excellent Technobabylon series, with permission and a blessing from James Dearden, and thus I'm on the prowl for more games to cover. I have a list of about a dozen AGS games I want to cover and will send some e-mails asking for permission to do so starting next week.

But I figured I'd ask here first. Is there anyone who wants a let's play of their game? During my short stint as a game developer I found it extremely helpful when people recorded their blind playthroughs of my games since it enabled me to figure out exactly where and when players got stuck. What was too obvious and what was simply too obscure. I can vocalize my thought process as verbosely as you prefer.

Since you don't really know me I'll list the most salient points.
1. I do not monetize my let's plays, there are no ads or other commercialization of them. I love the medium, that's the only reason I need.
2. I don't do facecams, intros, add music, scream shrilly or anything else of that nature. If I did I might actually have viewers, see next point. I cover the game and only the game.
3. My channel is miniscule in stature so I doubt it'll give you any exposure worth mentioning.
4. I tend to narrate every single strip of text in a game I play. This is because I was requested to do so by a friend of mine who has a seeing disability. However that is optional, if you want me to put a sock in it and just voice my own thoughts that's totally fine.
5. I can do both prepared let's plays and blind ones. It doesn't matter to me, but I'm guessing a blind will be more helpful on a mechanical level. When I do a prepared LP I play through a game twice, record each session. Watch them, take notes and then record the final, prepared session. My technobabylon LP below is prepared, my LP of the living nightmare series is blind.

That's about it. Never done a public request before and I doubt it'll receive particularly many replies but I wanted to put it out there since I love the concept of AGS and its community. Some of my favorite games and series (of all time) have been released here over the last decade. If I can help in some small way I'd like to do so.

Channel - https://www.youtube.com/anderstonfeldt
Technobabylon LP - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtrHR3af4aQ0XA3OaWPXhIvuuAY5ycK6c
Living nightmare LP - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtrHR3af4aQ2Y0m3YekbtlES4PPZZZTh4

Mandle · Fri 07/02/2014 22:23:55

I request a "Let's Play" of "Donald Dowell and the Ghost Of Barker Manor"!!!

CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOAD

It's a game I worked closely on for the English translation with the creator, AprilSkies, and the translation team, RumCorpse...

It's also nominated at the moment for several AGS Awards.

Classic adventure game style so well worth your time as it seems you are all about helping out the genre.

Cheers!

veryweirdguy · Fri 07/02/2014 22:34:39

Why the frig not!

I made a short game a couple of years ago, called THE LIGHTHOUSE.

I'm not even sure if it's any good! I can't remember much about it. But feel free to give it a shot!

Download it here!

Radiant · Fri 07/02/2014 23:28:42

I would like to see a Let's Play of Spooks.

No, I didn't make Spooks. But it's got a really sweet story and it would be good to see a video of it. Linky.

Ponch · Sat 08/02/2014 02:50:14

Nine Months In

Ghost · Sat 08/02/2014 06:21:47

Annie Android would be sweet! I never saw a Let's Play of that, and it's a classic.

From my own list, why not a game of Hubris? Easy to pick up and all

Fitz · Sat 08/02/2014 06:50:17

If you like games about snide, condescending space aliens, you might like Visitor, by NickyNyce, or Gray (by yours truly).

TFeldt · Sat 08/02/2014 10:20:27

Ok then. I must admit I'm rather stunned. Figured I might get one hesitant reply not a 6 post strong list of awesome games. Let's see here, I'm going to add "The lighthouse", "Hubris" and "Gray" to the queue. Allow me to humbly thank you all for allowing me to do LPs of your games.

I'll add "Annie android", "Nine months in", "Spooks" and "Donald Dowell and the Ghost Of Barker Manor" to my list of developers I need to e-mail for permission. Great suggestions all of them.

Since I wasn't really expecting any replies I didn't add the disclaimer, here goes. I move at a glacial pace. It takes me roughly 10x the gametime to finish an LP. An example is my LP of the Technobabylon series, it stands at 3 hours and 36 minutes. It took roughly 31 hours to finish the videos. The reason why I'm saying this is so that nobody thinks I'm ignoring their suggestion as time goes by.

Fortunately blind LPs (which is what the developers here want, I'm guessing?) are somewhat quicker since they don't require any preparations beyond the allocation of time to record and edit.

NickyNyce · Sat 08/02/2014 12:24:53

After speaking with you through PM's, I give you permission to LP my game The Visitor 2.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1599/

On behalf of the AGS community, I think what you're doing is a great thing. There are tons of developers that would love to see their games get played. I salute you for even finding the time to do a few of them.

You have a long list of great games, I wish you luck and god speed!

Tenacious Stu · Sat 08/02/2014 14:14:39

For the record, if anyone wanted to Let's Play Time Stone (which some have) or any other of my games for that matter, including released and future games, they absolutely have my permission to do so

So if you feel like playing Time Stone, then feel free! Of the time of my head, other games I would like to see Let's Played - Eternally Us, Educating Adventures of Girl & Rabbit, Sepulchre...

TFeldt · Sat 08/02/2014 17:13:38

Ah, thank you both most kindly. I will be adding them to the list post-haste.

I had the day off, my fiance was off on adventures involving shoes and shopping, so I made the first LP for Lighthouse. It's available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnjbDoqChIE&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLtrHR3af4aQ0-XThfolNyQ6Zjfmuee_OO

After that I attempted to make one of Hubris but unfortunately it appears there's either a generic bug in the scripting of it, or there's a portability issue with running it under linux. It appears a map reference is set to null, so it either doesn't exist or the path to it is invalid. I recorded a video of it in the hopes that it'll help track down the problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibs780FMJ3Q&list=PLtrHR3af4aQ0-XThfolNyQ6Zjfmuee_OO

AprilSkies · Sat 08/02/2014 17:24:32

Hi TFeldt. First of all you're doing a great thing. Sorry to post here late, just saw it few minutes ago.
I give you the permission for the game Mandle suggested: Donald Dowell.
As NickyNice said, it's a great thing for the AGS community.
Thank you.

Ghost · Sat 08/02/2014 17:47:27

Quote from: TFeldt on Sat 08/02/2014 17:13:38
I attempted to make one of Hubris but unfortunately it appears there's either a generic bug in the scripting of it, or there's a portability issue with running it under linux.

That seems to be a Linux issue. In addition to the reported bug you also have the sound pop a lot, and there is a font outlined when it should in fact have no outline. Since Hubris was developed for Windows and never tested on Linux, I admit I would not even know where to start fixing the bug. (It IS a game designed to be run under Windows, made with a toolkit written to run under Windows and thus should also be played on a computer running on, well, Windows. I don't know how well Linux supports AGS, at all...

)
But thanks for trying!

__
Edit: Hubris uses an external file to store player data. These files usually reside in the (Windows-Specific) folder USERNAME/My Saved Games/") and that is where the program looks for them. So on a Linux system this may indeed cause the problem. Without that file the game will have no way to load certain data, and that can explain the crash.

TFeldt · Sat 08/02/2014 18:08:38

Quote from: Ghost on Sat 08/02/2014 17:47:27
Quote from: TFeldt on Sat 08/02/2014 17:13:38
I attempted to make one of Hubris but unfortunately it appears there's either a generic bug in the scripting of it, or there's a portability issue with running it under linux.

That seems to be a Linux issue. In addition to the reported bug you also have the sound pop a lot, and there is a font outlined when it should in fact have no outline. Since Hubris was developed for Windows and never tested on Linux, I admit I would not even know where to start fixing the bug. (It IS a game designed to be run under Windows, made with a toolkit written to run under Windows and thus should also be played on a computer running on, well, Windows. I don't know how well Linux supports AGS, at all... )
But thanks for trying!

__
Edit: Hubris uses an external file to store player data. These files usually reside in the (Windows-Specific) folder USERNAME/My Saved Games/") and that is where the program looks for them. So on a Linux system this may indeed cause the problem. Without that file the game will have no way to load certain data, and that can explain the crash.

I'll gladly help you resolve the issue if you wish. If the file you're referring to is named either "profile.tab", "options.dat" or the regular "agssave.999" then the files are written correctly but in the game's main directory. What does line 50 in the source file "room2.asc" state? If it references any variables then please do include the contents of them as well.

If this isn't a scripting bug or a hardcoded path I'll either fix the bug in the main ags interpreter tree or at least relay the information to the maintainers of the linux branch (depending on how lazy I feel).

Ghost · Sat 08/02/2014 18:12:58

Quote from: TFeldt on Sat 08/02/2014 18:08:38
What does line 50 in the source file "room2.asc" state?

Hah! Now I remember!
Okay, line 50 just stops a midi file.

function room_Leave()
{
gvMIDI.Stop();
gMainMenu.Visible = false;
}

And back then one player reported a similar issue and was able to play the game after turning off the game music, using winsetup.exe. I don't know if he was on Linux, too, but since this was the only bug report I ever got I dismissed it as a fluke.

But it is indeed a programming mistake on my part, I will just add a safety catch if an actual midi file is playing to catch the null pointer. Thanks for spotting it- and please let me know if you can get the game running after turning off the music.

TFeldt · Sat 08/02/2014 18:44:07

Ah, midi, yes that would certainly do it. There's support on some level for midi but it's flakey and I believe I read somewhere that it broke with ags 3.x. As far as I know the linux branch doesn't support turning just midi off. It's either all sound or no sound. Don't quote me on that but the only setting in acsetup that seem to matter is digiid={0,1}, the rest get ignored.

Turning off all sound leads to a problem in "room1.asc" on line 22, another null pointer reference. If you're up for sending me the recompiled game with the catches in place I'll gladly try it. My email is anders@tonfeldt.se if you want to send it directly.

Ghost · Sat 08/02/2014 19:13:22

That's another sound issue: AudioChannel *snd1 = aLCStatic.Play();

And that is a WAV file, so apparently Linux does not like those too.

I can certainly compile a new version that just never plays a sound, but I think that's not exactly the sensible thing to do.

Interesting data, though. I have confirmation that Linux sometimes messes up imported TTF fonts, and now I learn about this sound issue. Considering that the new AGS version seems to be more about cross-platforming, I wouldn't mind recompiling it with that, once released.

TFeldt · Sat 08/02/2014 19:33:39

Quote from: Ghost on Sat 08/02/2014 19:13:22
That's another sound issue: AudioChannel *snd1 = aLCStatic.Play();

And that is a WAV file, so apparently Linux does not like those too.

I can certainly compile a new version that just never plays a sound, but I think that's not exactly the sensible thing to do.

Interesting data, though. I have confirmation that Linux sometimes messes up imported TTF fonts, and now I learn about this sound issue. Considering that the new AGS version seems to be more about cross-platforming, I wouldn't mind recompiling it with that, once released.

No no, both midi and wave works fine in linux. The second null reference only occurred when I had turned off all sound. It appears that attempting to do aLCSTatic.Play() when sound is disabled will yield a null reference. It isn't related to linux or wave. You just have to make sure it catches the exceptions that are thrown or not use sound playing functions when sound is disabled. If you attempt to use an audiochannel that doesn't exist (because it cannot be created since sound is disabled) it will crash. Apparently.

1. Create the audio channel.
2. Verify that the audio channel was successfully created.
3. If it was then .Play() with it.
4. If it wasn't, then don't attempt to .Play() with it.

Let's not complicate it too much, if you can just catch the exception of the original problem with midi and recompile then I can try it. Assuming there aren't any more explicit references to unset variables it should work.

EDIT: Actually, we're going way, way off-topic here. If you want me to beta-test any modifications then I'll most happily do so. Let's move our conversation to PMs if you do want me to.

Grim · Sat 08/02/2014 23:27:03

I think that's great that more AGS games will be Let'sPlayed!

It's amazing watching someone play your game and it just a teaches you so much about good game design and reassures that games can be taken seriously.

Good luck, and count me in for subscriptions!:)

TFeldt · Sun 09/02/2014 10:25:27

Quote from: Grim on Sat 08/02/2014 23:27:03
I think that's great that more AGS games will be Let'sPlayed!

It's amazing watching someone play your game and it just a teaches you so much about good game design and reassures that games can be taken seriously.

Good luck, and count me in for subscriptions!:)

Thank you very much mate, it really helps with exposure. For those unfamiliar with youtube, it works like a positive feedback loop. Every time a video gets "liked" the chance of it being randomly featured is increased. Every time a channel gets a new subscriber it gets moved up in the ranks and shown to more people. Thus more people will get exposed to ags games and hopefully try some out themselves.

When I first began I was planning on doing mostly amiga games (my first lp was of crime city). But I discarded the idea since it's been so long that it didn't really help the developers of those games. Would much rather expose more people to the world of ags.